Fog on the Riverbed

A performance of Domenico Scarlatti’s Sonata K27 by Mikhail Pletnev

https://www.kerryhirth.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/1-05-Sonata-K27-In-B-Minor-Pletn-1.mp3
A Brief Statement on Fog on the Riverbed
This sketch-like drawing is an early work of mine which is meaningful to me personally. It is based on a section of Scarlatti’s Sonata K27 – a work I have painted at least twenty times, dividing it up into four parts, each with multiple iterations. The variations in performances of this sonata are very diverse and its meaning is richly developed. I am not sure what it is about this sonata that has made it so compelling to so many musicians, with the exception that it bears whatever you bring to it and gives it back in a different form. This iteration takes on the colors of the land where I was raised. So many mornings I looked out of my window to the east, seeing the vermilion sun rise above the cedars, with fog hovering over the Gasconade riverbed. The sonata takes on the colors of a true, real place.